JETBLACK Light Weight Rotor
Whilst recently fitting some flash new red brake lines to my new Pivot Mach 4 Jonesy told me he had thrown a pair of Jetblack’s new lightweight rotors on the bike and asked me to see how I thought they performed.
I was initially quite sceptical thinking “how much weight can you really save on a set of rotors?” however when you start to look into the (confusing) world of rotating masses etc it becomes quite evident that the best way to make your bike feel lighter is by keeping your hoops and all associated bits as light as possible, Jonesy’s technique of fitting only 3 of the 6 attaching bolts takes this to the next level! (Every gram counts eh?).
Upon picking up my bike my first impression was how cool these new rotors looked, (bike bling is always a factor for myself), Jonesy had also swapped out my 160mm rear rotor for a 140mm saving even more of those precious grams.
On hitting the trail these rotors felt great as soon as the new pads bedded in, the 160/140mm combo actually feels perfectly balanced as more power is always needed at the front brake. I guess the thing with something like brake rotors is that a poorly performing set will stand out but a set that simply work efficiently will go unnoticed and thats how these rotors were, they easily matched if not surpassed the performance of the standard ones on my avid juicy 7’s.
As with all ‘wavey’ style rotors there is a slight buzzing noise during prolonged braking on a long downhill but this is quiet and not annoying in the slightest, unfortunately due to the extreme lack of rain Perth has had recently I have not had a chance to ride them in the wet, this would be a good test as my standard rotors used to squeal like crazy!
To summarise, if you are wanting to build up some light wheels and want to add some bling looking rotors to finish the package I would most definitely recommend these rotors as an inexpensive upgrade for your bike!
P.S. Go the 3 rotor bolts, 6 is such overkill !! Cheers, Ross
